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Umarth
2008-01-02, 10:35 AM
Yet another homebrewed spell. This one is from my Truth line of spells. You can see the full line and my Revised Adept here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62726&highlight=revised+adept

Rejection of Lies
Divination
Level: Cleric 4, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round per level
Saving Throw: No
Spell Resistance: No

You bind your spirit tightly to reality causing any untruths you speak to physically damage you. For the duration of the spell any untruth you speak, whether or not you believe the statement to be true, causes you to suffer 4 points of constitution damage. Statements about the future, statements of opinion, or ambiguous statements can not count as truths or untruths for the purpose of this spell and thus never cause con damage.

This spell functions normally with regards to spells such as nondetection and other spells that foil divinations. If a statement is made about a creature under such a spell, you take 1 point of Constitution damage and are aware of the fact that your target does not wish the truth to be known.


Alternate Version (proposed by Witch)
The spell deals 1d4 points of con damage rather than always dealing 4 points.

If anyone has an opinion on wich version is better I'd love to hear it.

Witch
2008-01-02, 10:50 AM
Yet another homebrewed spell. This one is from my Truth line of spells. You can see the full line and my Revised Adept here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62726&highlight=revised+adept

Rejection of Lies
Divination
Level: Cleric 4, Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Range: Personal
Effect: You are damaged by lies
Duration: 1 Minute
Saving Throw: No
Spell Resistance: No

You bind your spirit tightly to reality causing any lies you speak to physically damage you. For the duration of the spell any lie you speak causes you to suffer 4 points of constitution damage. Statements about the future, statements of opinion, or ambiguous statements can not count as lies for the purpose of this spell.

Does this involve perceptions of the truth, or the truth itself? For example, if you say "my dad is John Doe", but actually, your mom was unfaithful, and Jim Morrisson is your real father, does saying "My dad is John Doe", while genuinely believing this to be the case, trigger the damage?

Umarth
2008-01-02, 11:09 AM
Does this involve perceptions of the truth, or the truth itself? For example, if you say "my dad is John Doe", but actually, your mom was unfaithful, and Jim Morrisson is your real father, does saying "My dad is John Doe", while genuinely believing this to be the case, trigger the damage?

If your biological father was Jim Morrisson and you said your father was John Doe that would trigger the damage.

This spell basically let's you divine knowledge by making statements and seeing what hurts you and what doesn't.

For example if you are investigating a murder you could ask questions along the lines of:
The murderer was a man. (take damage, false statement)
The murderer was a woman (no damage, True statement)
The deceased knew the murderer (no damage, True statement)
The murderer was the man's wife (no damage, True statement)
The husband was faithful to his wife (take damage, false statement)
The husband was cheating on his wife (no damage, true statement)
The murder was justified by the husband's cheating (no damage, opinion)

So now we know who the murderer was and have some idea why they where murdered. Of course we could also be missing something like the fact that the wife was also cheating on the husband, didn't know about his affair, and murdered him as her initiation into the local assassins guild.

I'll try and clear that up in the spell though.

Witch
2008-01-02, 11:25 AM
Clarifies a lot.


All in all, I recommend a number of changes.

I'd add a focus component - such as a lash held in hand, that strikes out at you every time you do not speak the truth, inflicting the constitution damage. A somatic component would be required as well, then. I'd also change the casting time to 10 minutes and have the spell last 1 round/level rather than 1 minute.

Remove the "Effect: You are damaged by lies" line. Replace it by "Target: You".

Change the Constitution damage to 1d4 or 1d4+1 - it's generally a better idea to keep such things variable.

Lastly, the content of the spell should clarify what you mean by lies. Generally, a "lie" is interpreted to be something that one does not believe to be the case. Hence, if you believe something genuinely to be the case, then people will not consider you to be lying, they'll consider you to be wrong. I'd remove reference to lies altogether and speak of "truths" and "untruths". It can stay in the title, though, because it just sounds awesome there.



Altogether, the idea is pretty cool. I may use the spell myself for NPCs of mine.

Witch
2008-01-02, 11:40 AM
As a few additional thoughts - how does this spell interact with people under the effect of a non-detection spell? E.g., if I say "John Doe was the murderer" and John Doe is under the effect of non-detection, do I take damage? Or do I not take damage, and hence think it to be true (this would make non-detection rather meaningless)? Maybe the best idea is to have the spell not deal any damage but have the casterbe aware that the spell cannot divine the truth in this case?

Umarth
2008-01-02, 11:55 AM
Witch,

Thanks for all the comments. I've implemented all of them but randomizing the damage.

I left that change out for two reasons:

1) Random damage just slows things down (extra die rolling) and I don't see a good reason to do it here.

2) When dealing with a spell that is all about truth/untruth randomness feels a bit odd.

If there is a good reason you've got for the damage being random though I'd be happy to consider changing it.

As for divination blocking spells I added some text saying that you know the target of the spell has "lied" to reality and you suffer 1 point of con damage. You get that result regardless of the truth/untruth of the statement.

Witch
2008-01-02, 12:04 PM
1) Random damage just slows things down (extra die rolling) and I don't see a good reason to do it here.
Well, rolling a die for an out of combat spell like this doesn't seem to significantly slow things down.



2) When dealing with a spell that is all about truth/untruth randomness feels a bit odd.
Never felt about it that way - there's randomness in the deepest truths of reality, with quantum physics.



This spell is foiled normally by spells such as nNondetection and other spells that stop divinations. If a statement is made by a creature under such a spell you take 1 point of constitution damage and are aware of the fact that your target has magically "lied" to reality.
I'd change this to "This spell functions normally with regards to spells such as nondetection and other spells that foil divinations. If a statement is made about a creature under such a spell, you take 1 point of Constitution damage and are aware of the fact that your target does not wish the truth to be known."


In any case, glad to help.

Umarth
2008-01-02, 12:12 PM
Took your changes on the wording at the end.

Also noted the two versions of damage (random/set) and asked for more input from the homebrewed community. I can go either way on it and if we get a couple more votes for random damage I'll switch it.